The appeal of the convicted former prime minister and de-facto leader of the opposition Pheu Thai party remains so strong in the region that the party’s official candidates are finding campaigning easy. “Even if Pheu Thai fielded a dog as their candidate here, we would vote for it,” said Rassamee Klaithongdee, 43, of Khok Sung village in Khon Kaen province, 400 kilometres northeast of Bangkok. Thaksin, who has been living overseas to avoid a two-year jail sentence for abuse of power, is not running, but the prime minister from 2001 to 2006 has remained a pivotal player in Thai politics and effectively in control of Pheu Thai. A billionaire telecommunications tycoon before he entered politics, Thaksin has declared that he wants to return to Thailand by December -- presumably not to serve his prison sentence. He picked his sister, Yingluck, 44, to be Pheu Thai’s candidate for prime minister, calling her his political “clone.” Yingluck, a good-looking former businesswoman with no political experience, appears to have won over some new supporters in Bangkok, a bastion for the ruling Democrat Party in the 2007 election. But in the north-east region of Isaan, home to nearly a third of Thai voters and Pheu Thai’s traditional stronghold, her arguments do not really matter. “Villagers in the north-east only care that Yingluck is Thaksin’s sister,” said Buapan Promphaping, professor at the Faculty of Social Science at Khon Kaen University. “They think that if Pheu Thai wins, Thaksin will come back, and that’s why they will vote for the party.” Winning Isaan is crucial to Pheu Thai’s chances of moving up from its current 188 seats in the 500-strong House of Representatives and becoming a majority government. The region, home to 21mn of the country’s 65mn people, holds 127 of the 375 constituencies to be contested in next month’s election. And 70% of voters list Pheu Thai as their favourite party, according to a poll published in The Nation newspaper this week. Pheu Thai’s popularity in Isaan goes back to Thaksin’s first campaign under his since-disbanded Thai Rak Thai party, which won the 2001 general election on a raft of populist policies. The party promised each village nationwide a fund of 1mn baht ($33,333) to be used as it liked as well as write-offs of farmers’ debts and a free health scheme. The strategy was particularly effective in Isaan, Thailand’s most impoverished region, where vote-buying had been rife. The practice remains rampant, but its effectiveness has diminished. “Nowadays, the villagers know that if a candidate buys their vote they will just look out for their own interests once in government,” said Taworn Sansombat, former village headman in Baan Kamplalai, also in Khon Kaen province. Attitudes started to change after the first Thaksin government, he said. “I think Thaksin is loved for the clarity of his policies, and the fact that he delivered on them,” Taworn said. A coup that ousted him and his 2008 corruption conviction did not reduce his fan base in Isaan. Instead, the region contributed large numbers of members to the United Front for Democracy against Dictatorship, the street movement affiliated with Pheu Thai, which organised anti-government demonstrations from March to May last year in Bangkok that were put down by police and troops. Ninety-two people died, including Rassammee’s brother, Praison Thiplom. The Democrats in their two and a half years in office have delivered their own pro-poor policies that have brought widespread benefits to Isaan.However, these programmes -- as well as Democratic Prime Minister Abhisit Vejjajiva’s contention that Thaksin was responsible for last year’s violence and used his followers for personal gain -- are unlikely to transform into political support. DPA